Bradbury's Walk-off Winner Keeps Independence Alive

Independence senior Kassidy Bradbury is no stranger to postseason heroics.

Wednesday night in a win or go home battle against Herbert Hoover in the Class AAA Region 3 softball championship, the Glenville State University commit made what will be the most memorable swing of her high school career.

With the Patriots trailing by one run in the bottom of the seventh inning, Bradbury walked it off with a two-run homer to straight away center for a 6-5 win.

Independence will now travel to Elkview for the final game of the best-of-3 series. The winner advances to the state tournament in South Charleston next week.

"This is crazy right now. I don't really have the words," Bradbury said. "I stress myself out so much, but I hit well sometimes in these situations. I was just looking for a pitch that I wanted to hit and I got one."

The home team took control early scoring three runs in the bottom of the first inning.

Bradbury opened with a single, but appeared to be out at second in the first leg of a possible double play. However, the throw was wide at second, allowing Bradbury to score and Ava Parks to move all the way to third.

A fielder's choice ground ball from Emma Lilly and an RBI-single from Paytin Brehm added two more runs for a 3-0 lead.

The Huskies evened the game in the fourth inning on a solo blast from Kyleigh Elmore and a two-run blast from Jaylee Carper.

An inning later, Elmore stung the Patriots again, this time with a 2-run blast for a 5-3 lead.

"We didn't show up ready and they jumped on us 3-0," Herbert Hoover head coach Missy Smith said. "We had to dig out of a hole to begin with and then we didn't finish them when we had a chance."

After not scoring for four innings, Independence sliced the deficit in half, once again with some help from the Huskies.

Emma Lilly moved all the way to second base on an error in the outfield and worked her way to third base with one out.

Desperately needing to make something happen, veteran Patriots head coach Ken Adkins rolled the dice. On a fly ball just off of the infield, Adkins elected to send Lilly home. The play was close, but the ball came loose as Lilly slid across the plate.

"We say it all the time, you tag and let me decide. She is going backwards and almost fell down (on the catch). She has to catch it, gather, make the good throw," Adkins said. "The catcher has to catch it, she had to get a tag down. All we have to do is run from third to home. I don't think they expected it. I felt like we had to get back in the game. You look like a genius on those, but if you get thrown out at home on a pop out to the shortstop, you like an (idiot). I didn't think she would even throw the ball."

The gutsy call was one of three moves that paid off for Independence down the stretch.

With starting pitcher Kenzie Pierce struggling after an 11-inning grinder two nights back, Adkins decided to make a move in the circle with two outs in the sixth inning.

"They hadn't seen Paytin, only in the blowout deal. I felt like she would be fresh, so we will go with something a little different and see if we can get back in the game that way," Adkins said. "I just knew they couldn't score anymore. Paytin came in and did a good job."

Brehm was able to put the Huskies in lock-down the remainder of the game, setting the stage for the comeback.

With Brehm moving to the circle, Adkins also elected to bring in freshman Fallyn Rakes to play first base. With two strikes on her in the bottom of the seventh, Rakes led off with a single to jump-start the Patriots.

While most of the attention will fall to Bradbury's heroics, the uncharacteristic mistakes by Hoover put them in a bind late in the game.

"They are a good team and the more times that their hitters get to see (starting pitcher) Hannah (Shamblin), the harder it is to call pitches and pitch around them," Smith said. "We made too many mistakes. They capitalized on them and got to turn their lineup over again. That just makes it more difficult. You can't keep them off base forever, you just hope you can minimize the damage, but we didn't."

The drama now shifts back to Herbert Hoover High School where one team will move on to the state tournament and one will go home for the year.

"We knew the region was going to be tough as soon as the alignments came out," Smith said. "When you are this far into the season, everybody is good. If you don't show up, you are going to get your tail busted and get sent home."